American Craft Beer Fest in retrospect

The Lowell Sun

Updated:
06/10/2013 09:05:59 AM EDT

I recently was lucky enough to be able to attend the 6th annual American Craft Beer Fest, the largest celebration of American craft beer and brewers on the East Coast. The flyer and handout from the event counts the beers available as numbering over 600, from 140-plus individual craft breweries. Needless to say, as we stepped into the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston Harbor, we were floored and a bit overwhelmed. A playground of beer, all mine for the taking... yikes!

On the way to the fest, we had begun checking off priority breweries so we would have a sense of direction, and we began by following it fairly solidly. Pretty Things was first up, and they boasted, by far, the largest beer list. I began the night with a sample of their American Darling, a crisp and refreshing lager with a higher-than-usual ABV that drink fairly easily and inoffensively. Pat sprang for Field Mouse's Farewell, a really nicely-done farmhouse-style ale with the requisite spicy yeast tones and noble hop flavors, rounded out with a wheat-laden, medium finish.

We saw Tröegs a few spaces down and paid them a visit, both opting for what they were dubbing their "Triple Mango IPA." Intensely hoppy with a fruity kick that lead to a dry, plastic-y finish full of alcohol heat and some estery sweetness, this nearly 12 percent beer did some serious palate damage.

We decided right then not to go too crazy right off the bat and hopped over to High & Mighty for some sessionable local beer.

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The Holyoke brewery was pouring a few interesting selections including Divine Brown and Fumata Nera. The coffee and roasted malt nuttiness of the brown was, in fact, pretty divine, while the Fumata was smoky, complex and dark. At only 4.5 percent ABV each, we could've hung out here all night... but we had work to do.

Crossing the aisle, we headed to Jack's Abby's table and got ourselves samples of some of their ever-excellent beer. I decided to reacquaint myself with the first beer I ever tried from them, Cascadian Schwarzbier (gesundheit!) while Pat opted for a bit of Maple Smoked Lager after much coaxing. The Cascadian is a hoppy, darkly-malted lager with big char/ash tones followed by big resinous pine elements from huge quantities of fresh American hops while the maple lager, done in collaboration with Lawson's Finest, is one of my favorite cooperatively-created beers in recent memory; it's exactly what is described in the name!

Weyerbacher's Blasphemy quad had me seeing stars with a big caramel, toffee and estery fruit finish that lingered on and on. Dogfish Head was pouring a bunch of their cooler beers so I chose to try Burton Baton, an oak-aged double IPA, while Pat went with Sah-tea which is loosely-based off the idea of a traditional Finnish sahti aged on juniper twigs and brewed with chai tea among other bizarre ingredients. Both of these were run through what looked to be a hopback that infused the beers with fresh Nugget hops which was quite cool!

Some other highlights included Trillium Bug Valley, Throwback Spicy Bohemian, Rocky Coast The Boomer, Cape Cod Summer, Clown Shoes Galactica on cask, Spring House Robot Surf Factory, Sixpoint Mad Scientists Series Grätzer and Lawson's Finest Liquids Barrel Aged Maple Stout. We tried many, many more beers but these were the best of the best! Great times had by all and an extremely large, eclectic selection that only makes me more hopeful for the future of innovative and interesting American craft beer. I can't think of anything better to toast to! Until next time!